


Like "The Notebook" Except...Not

by brynntense



Series: Edgelord's Guide to Parenthood [3]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, I LIVE FOR IT, I just can't, i can't do a marriage and parenthood series without any awkward young romace, malia is a disaster, sebastian my edgelord we're gonna make you appealing to women
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynntense/pseuds/brynntense
Summary: Young love has to start somewhere, even if both halves a pair are so socially inept it takes a minor group effort.[NOT ABANDONED I PROMISE]





	1. Just Short of a Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I tried to resist writing anything that is pre- for my series, but I just can't help it because I am a self-indulgent monster.
> 
> This'll be the spiritual part 3 of the Edgelord's Guide to Parenthood Series but it'll likely be the only one to be multi-chaptered and, since it's not crucial to that series, will be updated less frequently
> 
> OFFICIAL part 3--I'm working on it.

Sebastian Mendes had had his journeys into the world outside of his basement carefully timed since he was at least sixteen years old. While he always had a carefully crafted neutral expression, there was never a time when he wasn't thinking, and thinking deeply. When did Demetrius go toward the mines to do his weird plant shit? Time for coffee. When was Maru at work? Get food and go for an undisturbed walk. When was everyone in the house? Seemed like an ideal time to go hang with Sam, have a cigarette while his friend battled his little brother’s Pokemon team.

It had been seven years – he was good at this. Things weren’t perfect but they would work until he saved enough to move to the city and away from this close-knit small-town bullshit.

Basically, he took great care in making sure he’d never be the only person immediately available to answer to one of his mother’s customers.

“Robin? Are you—oh. Oh. Hi.”

Every logical connection Sebastian could make led to the conclusion was that the girl awkwardly standing in his foyer was the new farmer in town, but it couldn’t be. She couldn’t be any older than him, she had that “mermaid hair” Instagram trend going on with the teal locks that fell over her shoulders, and she was wearing some kind of graphic tee so faded he couldn’t discern what it was even _for,_ along with blue jeans.

Did Pelican town just get a Hot Topic employee to pose as a farmer?

“I’m sorry I was yelling, I mean—Robin said if she wasn’t at the desk to just ‘give her a shout’ but since you’re…like, looking at me like a crazy person I’m starting to think that I could have—I might have taken it too literally…?”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, and the girl bit her lip and began playing with her anime hair.

“Um, so if Robin isn’t here, I’ll just—”

“Hold it!” Robin called from another room.  Sebastian could’ve sworn the girl chuckled when he stupidly jumped in surprise at his mother’s voice. “Be right there, Malia! Sebby, introduce yourself!”

“How did you know I was here…?” Sebastian muttered to himself.

“Because anyone else wouldn’t have made a simple conversation so difficult!” His mother shouted, and Sebastian cursed her Mom Hearing.

“So, uh, you’re…Sebastian, then?” The girl, Malia, finally asked. “Your mom, yeah she mentioned you.”

Sebastian changed it up, and raised his other eyebrow.

“N-nothing bad! Just that you, uh, you lived here. And you do. Here you are.”

“Here I am,” he acknowledged. Then, because he knew if he didn’t make at least one attempt at conversation he’d hear about it later, “your shirt supposed to say something?”

“Oh—oh, yeah, it’s actually supposed to have a print of the—of the first issue of the Cave Saga comics, but my dad got it for me when I was like—fourteen?—so it’s kinda…dead. I wear it when I’m working on stuff. Like farming. Farming is—that’s the work I do. Now. Now it’s the work I do.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” he said, completely unable to tone down the sarcasm. Choosing to jump on the thing the genuinely piqued is interest, he added, “so you read Cave Saga then?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s like a whole family thing—my dad actually had the first edition of the first issue, he kept it in a case, but my older brother tried to trade it to this kid whose sister he had a major crush on, and he wanted to impress her by being nice or something, I guess? And my dad got so mad when he found out, he made my brother spend his car savings to buy it back from the pawn shop the other kid sold it to and—I’m talking too much. You didn’t ask for any of that. Yes, I read Cave Saga, I love it.”

Sebastian genuinely had no idea how to respond. He could tell her that she was right, he hadn’t asked for any of that, but that seemed a little mean-spirited, especially since she just seemed nervous. He could tell her that he liked Cave Saga too, but that had the risk of leading to a longer interaction which while it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever—comics were definitely _not_ a family thing around here—sounded like something he just didn’t have the spoons for that day.

“Your brother is banned from this house,” he said finally.

The girl let out a laugh that she seemed like she hadn’t been expecting – quick and gaspy—and her face went read when she actually snorted, and she let her head rest on his mother’s work counter with a sigh. “ _Yoba help me…_ ”

“What’d you do to her?” Sebastian jumped when his mother finally entered, and the girl lifted her head when the older woman made her way behind the counter, still staring at him, “all I said was ‘introduce yourself.’”

“And all I did was let her talk and then ban a portion of her immediate family from the premises on a whim. I don’t know what more you want from me.”

“Oh, Yoba, just…return to your man cave, Sebby. Now, Malia, we were talking about a coop?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was thinking…” the girl paused a moment after Sebastian had turned around, “oh, bye Sebastian! Nice meeting you!”

The pressure was on, then. It would be appropriate to say it was nice meeting her too, that was polite and it wasn’t _completely_ untrue, she didn’t seem to be reprehensible. _Nice to meet you, too,_ he told himself, _very simple, just say it._

“…bye, Malia.”

Not yet.

Maybe…?

But not yet.


	2. The Flower Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian had always thought he hated the Flower Dance the most, but he finds that, this year, he has some competition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating this series lately, I went to visit my parents in New Mexico this summer and now I'm traveling all the way back to Minnesota. I'm finally somewhere with decent internet.
> 
> In this chapter: minor alcohol abuse, copious self-loathing, attempts at romance

It had taken two weeks of prodding and pestering, both from his mother and Demetrius pretending to care, to make Sebastian haul the powder-blue Flower Dance tux from the deep recesses of his closet where it rightfully belonged.

He had told himself he’d be adamant this year, that he would not go, that Abigail hated dancing too and would be fine without a partner, but by the time the day rolled around, he had caved. Oddly enough, it was Maru who had convinced him—though he’d never tell her. One comment of “if you’re going to move to the city soon, can you at least do it for mom’s sake?”

And…yes, he guessed there was no reason he couldn’t do that.

“Seb, you’re not ready!” Robin said as he left his room, tux still in its garment bag, slung over his shoulder.

“I’m not walking through town in this thing, I’ll change when we get there.” His mother sighed, but relented, though she did attempt to fuss with his hair, “mom! I got it the way I liked it.”

“We’re gonna be late!” Maru opined from the foyer, and his mother pulled away, seemingly satisfied that he had at least washed his hair. This was why he didn’t go on “family outings” with them if he could help it – he was always herded out the door, treated like a kid who didn’t want to go to summer camp.

“Alright, alright,” Robin said, ushering both her son and her husband out the door and into the warm, flowery, spring air.

Ugh. He already felt like he’d be sneezing his brains out all day. What did people see in spring that was so great?

The trek to the forest wasn’t far enough to warrant the use of his mother’s delivery truck, with the four being all able-bodied and “perfectly suited for walking,” as Demetrius always said about transportation that may pollute the local flora and fauna. Sebastian didn’t understand why his carpenter mother would even give such a tree-hugger the time of day.

The family had apparently taken at least a bit of time to get there, as there was already a scene unfolding, with the usual scene-initiator, Haley, at the helm.

“My sister _made_ this dress, you freak!”

Sebastian finally reached the clearing to actually see the “freak” in question – a very, _very_ frightened teal-haired farmer. He quickly put together the empty glass she was holding and the pink stained on Haley’s white dress as being directly related, and he felt a tiny pang of sympathy.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there, and—Oh, Yoba I’m so, so sorry,” Malia said quickly, her voice quivering anxiously.

“ _Sorry_ doesn’t fix it, farm girl, it’s _ruined_ ,” Haley insisted. Sebastian spotted Emily quickly making her way over. She grimaced at the state of the dress, but her desire to diffuse her sister’s tantrum seem to outweigh he disappointment.

“It’s not ruined, Hales, I can fix this one – and the one I made last year still fits.”

“Haley, it’s really not that big a deal,” that jock, Alex, said from beside her. Haley huffed and probably said something unfavorable about wearing last year’s dress, but she and her sister stalked off to their nearby home to change.

Seeing Alex already in his suit made Sebastian realize he had promised to get ready. The restrooms at the festival grounds weren’t the best, but he himself was not the best of people, so he could tolerate it. As he walked toward the men’s room to don his Clown Suit From Hell, he heard barely audible exclamations from the ladies’ room beside it. He paused for a moment.

“Oh Yoba, for _once –_ just _once –_ can you not be a weirdo? Just have a good time, talk to someone, no more punch…no—no, you know what? Just find a corner and stay in it. A nice tree. Hide. Yeah, best course of action, hide. No one wants to dance with you anyway.”

At first, Sebastian felt something akin to anger – this was obviously in reference to Malia, but the he soon realized that the voice saying all of these terrible things to her…was her. And, Yoba, it sounded so much like the things he’d used to say to himself before he just quit caring what people thought of him that it was unsettling. He almost wanted to talk to her, but within minutes Haley had returned, still fuming, and he had no choice but to change.

He barely had time to ruminate on the fact that she hadn’t asked _him_. It wasn’t important anyway. Really.

***

Once the dance was finished and he, Abigail, and Sam had split off from the crowd, Sebastian’s mood seemed to improve. He’d taken time to change back into his regular clothes, and now his only complaint was being outside, around so many people.

“Can we not go _one_ flower dance without Haley freaking over something?” Abigail rolled her eyes as she spoke, and Sam laughed. “It’s not funny, Sam, she’s always picking on people. The farmer’s only been here for like two weeks and it was an accident, I saw it.”

“Malia,” the word left Sebastian’s mouth before his brain caught up to it. His friends looked at him, and he clarified, “that’s her name. She’s been getting a lot of stuff from my mom lately.”

“Do you know where she went?” Sam stretched onto his tiptoes despite being the tallest of the three anyway. “Aha! A tree recluse -- hey Seb, I found you a moping-buddy!”

“I do not _mope_. My grievances are legitimate, and you’re an asshole.”

He looked to where his friend had pointed anyway and saw that he was right, Malia was sitting beneath one of the taller trees, looking exhausted, and like she had cried, but a long time ago. She just looked despondent, and Sebastian wasn’t sure why she hadn’t left already. He would’ve. He should’ve, even.

“Come on,” Abigail grabbed both his and Sam’s arms so quickly he jolted and – Oh, Yoba, Abigail was in Rescue Mode. He wasn’t prepared for this.

Despite the swear of “no more punch” he had heard – and would have to pretend he did not hear – a red cup was in her hands, and her eyes were bleary when she looked up at the three when they approached. At least Sebastian could instantly tell why – he could smell the stuff from where he was standing, and though it did smell like Sugar-Free Joja Punch, there was a hint of something else – something that Pam probably had a lot to do with.

“Hey, uh,…Malia, right?” Abigail asked, obviously noticing the hint of alcohol as well.

“S’me,” the girl muttered, the updo she’d obviously put effort into when she had arrived was no more, and her hair hung over her face like a wavy curtain.

“You okay?”

“M’fine.”

Sebastian finally had to ask.

“Are you drunk?”

“Seb!” Abigail elbowed him.

“Not enough,” Malia replied, “listen…your whole town? It…sucks.”

“We know,” all three friends said in unison. Then Abigail continued when Malia gave them all a strange look.

“Never mind, I just wanted— _we_ just wanted to say to ignore Haley, okay? She’s always trying to find a problem. Last year it was Penny for, like, daring to talk to Alex for five seconds.”

“S’not her,” Malia slurred, “it’s me. It’s always… _always_ me. I came here all dressed up and fucked up in five minutes and no one—no one talks to me and it’s my fault—s’always my fault.”

She paused and stood up, brushing the grass off of her dress, the liquid in her cup sloshing to the ground in small doses. “I’m gonna go, m’sorry, I just…I gotta go and—”

“Not by yourself,” Abigail insisted. “Seb, take her home.”

“What? Why me?” It only occurred to him that this was probably a shitty thing to say to a depressed person when it was too late.

“I’ve been on that farmland, there’s a shortcut to your house you can take. It’s way easier.”

“If he doesn’t want to it’s okay,” Malia said.

“No,” he interjected before Abigail could continue prodding them, “I—it’s fine. I like the walk.”

In reality, he just didn’t want to make her feel even worse about herself…or find her dead in the forest or something.

Maybe he read to many horror novels.

Sebastian told Maru to tell Robin he’d be late getting home, and he and Malia made it halfway through Cindersnap forest before she narrowly avoided barfing on his shoes. He hated bodily fluids of any kind, so he managed to get them both a few steps away from it before asking if she was okay.

“Do you really think,” she said in between coughs, “after today I’m _okay_?”

“Damn, sorry I asked the person who nearly puked on me if she was okay.”

Malia grimaced, coughing again before swallowing.

“No, no I’m not okay. Lewis said I’m supposed to get people here—I don’t know, to like me, and nobody does.”

“Sam and Abby seem to like you,” he wasn’t ready to mention himself. He still wasn’t quite sure.

“They didn’t wanna dance. No one did, I asked everyone, and they all said no thanks. I like dancing so I thought maybe for the first time in years I’d enjoy something and I fucked it, because I forgot I’m a shit person.”

“No, you fucked it because you didn’t ask everyone and gave up,” he said through gritted teeth. He was reminded again how she hadn’t asked him, and couldn’t figure out for the life of him figure out why it annoyed him.

“I just told you I _did_ ,” she fired back, then there was a flash of clarity across her face. They continued to her farmland in silence while she thought. “I didn’t see you.”

“Got there late.”

They fell back into silence once again, then:

“Would you have, if I asked you?”

Great, now he had to think. He didn’t know her that well, they’d only talked a couple of times since their first meeting, and despite them getting along well enough, he was still hesitant to say he liked her, as he always was with new people. Because once you liked someone’s company, it always seemed to come with a level of commitment to interaction he was never ready for. It wasn’t fair to the people around him to make him think they sucked when, really, _he_ sucked at being a normal person. He always danced with Abby, that was just how they did things, it made the whole ordeal painless and simple enough to tolerate. Everyone participating had partners and no one switched. But there had never been anyone around their age who was _new_ before. He and Abby always quietly talked about video games, but he and Malia had things in common as well that could easily keep the process bearable.

They managed to get to her porch before he could answer. Would he have danced with her?

“Yeah,” he said, surprising himself and Malia, “I—I might’ve.”

He noticed in the glow of her porchlight that she was staring up at him and he wished he hadn’t made eye contact because her far away eyes were impossibly blue and _what the hell was this_? What was happening right now? She reached up, her cold hand touching his cheek, and he couldn’t help but flinch away. She didn’t seem too upset.

“That might’ve been nice,” she told him.

“It’s not all that fun, really,” he told her, “I just kinda slog through it.”

“Slog through it with me next time?”

He hesitated, and all he could do was nod. He saw those impossibly blue eyes widen very suddenly, like a startled deer, and he wondered if there was a bat on his head or something before she threw up, hitting his shoes this time.

“…sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vomit is an instant moment killer
> 
> I'm gonna be real with you I hate the first year Flower Dance and I'd get plastered too, okay?


	3. Tidal Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has problems and Sebastian and Malia learn sometimes you need to let people help you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late. I just moved back for school and have been job hunting. Being an adult sucks do not recommend.

Soaked. Exhausted -- physically and mentally. Listless. All of these things didn't keep Malia in her house, not like it usually should. 

The rain was soft, but constant, and after finishing a fence around a patch of parsnips with no rain gear or sense of self-preservation, she needed to some food. She had no way to cook anything other than a truly pathetic hot plate, and she had no food anyway--whatever she grew, she shipped. Her stash of gold had done nothing but shrink and grow erratically since she had arrived, she reasoned that if it was good, someone else would get to eat it.

Of course, walking into the saloon looking like a wet dog with a handful of gold was probably not one of her better plans. At least Gus had seemed sympathetic, offering her something on the house -- something about not letting anyone in Pelican Town go hungry -- but Malia’s pride couldn't let her take even a slice of bread. 

The treacherous part of her brain, the one that had always sounded suspiciously like her mother, whispered to her repeatedly things like people wouldn't think she was so pathetic if she had kept her horrible, steadier job at Joja instead of moving, that she should take her rumbling stomach as the sound of failure, and “once a freeloader always a freeloader.”

This part of her mind had led her to the beach in the pouring rain, hoping the more aggressive waves would wash up more shells and clams that Willy might buy off of her. It was dirty and irritating work, but she at least didn't make one sound of complaint until a particularly violent, storm-provoked wave of saltwater soaked her nearly up to her waist.

“ _ Fuck! _ ” She shouted, weeks worth of frustration emptying itself out in one word. She kicked a strand of slimy seaweed off her ankle. The shells she had gathered in her arms had fallen, and the sea took half of them back with it as the wave inched away.

“Screw it,” Malia stood up straight, convincing herself that the saltwater in her eyes was seawater only. Kind as Willy was, her remaining shell collection would earn her close to nothing.

“You know,” a voice said from behind her, a mixture of monotony and bite she'd recognize anywhere at this point. “I usually come to the beach of rainy days because it's...quiet.”

Malia turned around and tried to look Sebastian in the eye despite him having almost half a foot on her and her having to look up. He at least had the decency not to  _ look  _ amused at her misfortune.

“Sorry to ruin it for you” she said acidly, the cold and the stink of ocean water eroding her patience away furiously. “Didn't know you reserved it ahead of time.”

The look on his face puzzled Malia. He looked surprised, then slightly angry, and then he finally settled back into his regular scowl. The suddenly shifts made her think harder about his words, and her retort didn't make much sense when she added up what little she knew about Sebastian.

He was grumpy, but not petty enough to see a soaking wet young woman having a shitty day and decide to tell her how she was fucking up his.

Was that just his weird way of asking her what was going on?

He had shrugged and turned away before she could even ask. She supposed she deserved that, after the way she’d responded. Hell, after the way she’d been acting since she arrived.

“Sebastian, wait,” she said, over the roar of the waning storm. He stopped, but didn't turn around. She shook her head and closed the distance she had made. “I'm sorry.”

“...for what?”

Okay, so the offer to vent was gone. Fair enough. It wasn’t the only thing in her mind, at least not since seeing him.

“For...the dance. The way I acted after it. That's not me -- no, I gotta own that, it  _ was  _ me but...that's not the kinda person I am. I just...deal with things really badly.”

“I am aware.”

“ _ Yoba, _ will you just let me apologize to you?”

“Fine, go ahead.”

“...actually that was kinda it.”

Sebastian looked away, toward the ocean, not laughing at her but not trying nearly hard enough to hide the fact that he really wanted to. Finally he looked back, staring at the few shells still in her possession. Malia sighed.

“I was hoping to make some extra money to get dinner, but this isn't enough and Willy’s gonna close up soon anyway so. Guess I'll die.”

There were gears turning in Sebastian’s head, Malia could tell, but this semi-interrogation wasn't working for her.

“Anyway, counter-inquiry: who the hell comes to the beach in the rain just to...what, stare at the water?”

“Well,” he was pretending to think, like he was humoring a child, and it was  _ infuriating _ , “guess that’d be me.”

“Okay, I didn't phrase it right, my mistake. I mean  _ why? _ ”

This time, it seemed like he really was thinking about it, and Malia’s interest grew.

“I guess...everyone’s here when it's all calm and blue and looks like a postcard, but no one wants to see it...like this. I think the other way is boring,” he paused, looking like he had said too much, “I just...think it's more interesting to look at like this.”

Malia could see it -- once-calm ebbs and flows became angry, thrashing waves. The tides came so far up the shore it was like it didn't want anyone to be there, to see it in its imperfection. It smacked the high docks mercilessly, and she could imagine the wood trembling beneath her feet, were she standing there.

“It feels real,” he finally said, quietly.

“Do some things not?” Malia dared to ask. He was looking at the ocean again, like she wasn't there.

“People. Sometimes. At least not...honest.”

She could sense encroaching discomfort, and could somehow tell that this glimpse of Sebastian was about to fade away, he would retreat back into himself if she didn't say anything.

“Well, I'm honestly sorry -- for how I acted and for ruining...what this means to you. I'm honestly thanking you for walking me home that night. And I'm honestly starving, so what are the chances of me not dying from eating this tiny oyster as is?”

Sebastian let out a breath of air that could have been a laugh, had definite potential, but it just missed the mark.

“My mother...would honest to Yoba kill  _ me  _ if she knew I knew you didn't have any food and didn't help you.”

“Please don't spend any money, I can't afford to pay you back and don't know when I'll be able t--”

“Then I won't. You'll follow me home -- in a manner similar to that of a hungry stray cat -- and my mother won't let you leave until you eat.”

Malia was filled with an odd warmth at that, at his attempt to downplay his act of kindness, and smiled.

“I'm soaking wet and smell like fish,” she protested weakly.

“So do I. Everyone’s learned to live with it. I'm walking away now -- you comin’ or not?”

“I--yeah. Just don't run off on me.”

“I have never run, not once, in my life.”

Malia stifled an incredulous chuckle and followed him, through town and up the mountain.

 

*

 

Sebastian liked being proven right.

Once both he and Malia entered his house, Robin began to fuss over the both of them, simply telling Sebastian to go change and enlisting Maru into finding clothes that Malia may be able to wear. It played out exactly as he imagined until his mother told him that he would be eating dinner at the family table. With Demetrius. With Maru. Family in the loosest sense of the term.

He rarely ate upstairs, because Demetrius always found a way to wind him up, and while his stoicism was unmatched, there was only so much he could take. He was not looking forward to facing him and his daughter after coming in soaking wet and inviting an equally ragged-looking girl to dinner without asking anyone.

So he remained upstairs until Malia and Maru returned from the latter’s room, with Malia dressed a bit more brightly than he figured she preferred, and mumbling about her hair -- namely about the blonde peeking out of the once-vibrant teal -- and how harsh saltwater had not been kind to her hard work.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Maru said, and it sounded like she’d said several times before. “You can fix it later.”

Malia responded with only a grunt and polite request for a hair tie, getting her slightly curly locks out of her face. Sebastian bit his lip slightly, and she somehow sensed it because she turned her icy blue stare to him, expression dour.

“Go ahead.”

“You look moldy.”

“Seb!” Maru scolded, but Malia was giggling.

“Yeah, coming from the dude who’s literally the human-shaped, sentient pile of licorice jelly beans.”

“The licorice jelly beans,” Sebastian began, his voice low and dangerous, “are the  _ best _ .”

“That’s it,” Malia turned toward the table, ponytail flipping dramatically, “friendship cancelled.”

“Motherhood cancelled!” Robin called from the kitchen, “that’s not how I raised you, Sebby.”

Sebastian laughed in the quiet, unnoticeable way he preferred, but watched Malia’s expression twitched from something like sadness back into a smile, like a VHS tape rewound too many times. He was curious. Not enough to approach her about it, but the seed was planted.

The dinner, at first, was fine. The food was good and Malia was fielding questions and centralizing conversation, considering she was the guest. It was all stuff about farming and her hobbies, and there was no reason for him to really be involved--

“Video games, huh?” Demetrius said, and Malia nodded, “Sebastian plays a lot of those.”

It shouldn’t have made him defensive. From anyone else it would’ve been harmless, but he knew that demetrius was digging at the one thing that bothered him the most about his step-son -- that he never did anything productive.

“Not as much lately,” Sebastian didn’t look up from his food, “have a couple of contract projects going.”

“Hm.”

There it was. The “hm.” Every past experience told him not to react, and if Demetrius didn’t say anything else, it would be fine.

That’s what his brain said. His mouth, however, chose to say:

“What’s that mean?”

A fog descended over them, and he still wasn’t looking at anyone, but he could see it -- his mother’s frustration with the both of them slowly growing, the silent  _ don’t you dare _ , and Maru’s deer-in-the-headlights expression that usually preceded her excusing herself from the table.

“Just that you say that fairly often, they never seemed to be finished.”

“Believe it or not,” Sebastian began tensely, “there are multiple people with multiple projects paying me to help them, resulting in me having contracts a lot of the time. Usually people call that being ‘in-demand’ but...guess that’s not as clear to some people.”

“Sebastian, I was just saying--”

“I don’t care what you think you were just saying. I  _ know  _ what you think you were just saying to me, but I feel like in this day and age I’m providing a bit more to the world than, say, a botanist would.”

“Sebastian,” his mother said, her voice so low and threatening that Malia’s ponytail flicked him in the face when she turned to face her, never having heard anything like it. “Dem. Both of you. We’re not doing this.”

“I honestly have no idea why my name is  _ always  _ first, I’m just not interested in taking shit right now--”

“I’m tired!”

Everyone turned to look at Malia, who seemed to realize she’d shouted a phrase so mundane it was obviously a diversion.

“I mean, it’s been a long day and...Seb, do you wanna walk with me?”

She was giving him an out. She’d been around long enough to get home by herself just fine. She didn’t need his help at all. It was a rescue attempt. He’d take it.

“Yeah, you know what, that’s fine. I’m done anyway.” His mother gave him a look, it was sympathetic this time, like she just wanted him to do whatever it took to calm down. Maru’s tense posture relaxed, and he didn’t even spare Demetrius a glance.

It was still raining when he and Malia stepped outside, and they stood underneath the awning above the front door for a few moments. The rain was helping.

Malia tapped his wrist with two fingers, but when he turned to her she only stared. He wasn’t good at reading faces, but the  _ you okay?  _ may as well have been said aloud.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Because--”

“Not tonight. I’m not talking about me anymore tonight.”

Malia just nodded, taking a step forward before Sebastian grabbed her arm. She turned around, puzzled.

“We aren’t walking,” he told her, getting a head tilt in response. He led her over to the garage and opened it, gauging her expression as he rolled his motorcycle out into the rain with them.

“Oh, Yoba, you can’t be a nerd  _ and  _ have a motorcycle! Are you kidding me?”

“Are you trying to stereotype me, Moldy?” He reveled in her disgruntled huff as he got on, holding the helmet out to her, “you coming?”

“I…” Malia said, “have never ridden a motorcycle before.”

“First time for everything. I don’t usually help people. That was my first time. Your turn.”

She took the helmet hesitantly, “you don’t have one for yourself?”

“Don’t need one.”

“Famous last words.”

“Just get on, or you can walk.”

In retrospect, he supposed he should’ve thought this through a little more. Riding helped him relax, but he hadn’t quite considered the close proximity and contact a passenger would bring him. Within seconds Malia’s arms were around his waist and her head against his back and his head was telling him  _ too close too close too close _ \--

And they were there, at her farm, still slightly overgrown but with a larger, cleared patch for the crops she was growing.

“Looks nice, right?” Malia said playfully, “so fancy.”

“It looks…farm-y.”

“..Thanks.”

“Anyway,” Sebastian said, as she fumbled with her keys, “first motorcycle ride. How was it?”

“ _ Terrifying, _ ” she said dramatically, dropping her keys in her overacting, “nah, I really liked it. It was nice.”

Within moments she had finally opened her door, and there was no excuse for Sebastian not to leave. He took his helmet from her, ready to take off, but it felt...wrong.

“Hey, uh,” he said while her back was to him, halfway into her house. She turned around. “Thanks. For...getting me outta there.”

“Least I could do,” she told him after a moment. “You did something for me and I did something for you.”

She let out a huff, “but...you just did me another favor, bringing me home. Consider me indebted once again.”

“Careful,” Sebastian found himself saying, “I might hold you to that.”

This time she did walk into her house, then twirled around again. With a dramatic wink and toss of her hair, she began to close the door.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really really hate Demetrius. I just. I really do. Honestly he's not that great to either of his kids in my opinion.


	4. Ghoulsmashers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's something strange happening in this neighborhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, every now and then I'll open up my email and see that I've gotten a comment on this story, or other stories, and a lot of them are long and they're so, so sweet and they keep me motivated because I always think that when I put OCs out there then...like, get real, brynn, you're not entertaining anyone but yourself. But it seems like I'm not and that sounds so fucking #humblebrag but I really don't know how to put into words how much your comments and kudos mean to me.
> 
> And yes I am working on the next entry in my Totally Accurate Parenthood Guide but right now, like...I'm in shipping hell. I stayed up late to write this I'm in that deep help me

“Why did we…ugh…why’d we start this stupid favor thing?”

“We? It was _your_ idea. I’m just cashing in your IOU.”

 “I didn’t think it’d be this dirty and sweaty. And wet.”

Malia halted her already slow pace up the mountain to turn red at her own words. Sebastian was wearing his hood to shelter him from the pouring rain, and he hoped she didn’t look over to see his own blush creeping onto every part of his pale face. He shook his head and looked down at his bike, trying to figure out how to get Malia back to what they were doing while she seemed to mentally punching herself in the mouth.

“I mean—it’s raining. It’s muddy. And your bike is heavy—”

“Canwekeepmovingplease,” Sebastian sputtered, after clearing his throat and every other nonverbal way to change the subject.

Sebastian would never regret riding his motorcycle in the rain, nor would he ever stop, even though a tire problem cut it short. He realized to far into his journey to his lookout spot that the pressure in his front tire was too low, so he had to walk it back or risk it blowing out underneath him. The asphalt was straight, flat, and empty, so at least part of the journey was easy. Then he remembered his mother had built their home near the top of a mountain, with no paved road in sight, and he realized maybe he would need an extra hand or two.

“Where were you off to anyway?” Malia asked after regaining her composure, “is there some kind of frog enthusiast convention I’m not aware of?”

“No, and if there was no one would invite you because they’d think you colored your hair to smuggle the frogs out,” Sebastian quipped, “and the revelation of where I was headed is on a need-to-know basis.”

“I’m pushing your heavy-ass bike up a muddy hill with you. I _need to know_.”

“Do not.”

He could predict her movements before she made them. The sigh came first, then a the eyeroll, and he dodged just in time to avoid the annoyed flick of wet hair slapping him in the face. Maliology was a simple science, it turned out.

“You’re so cagey, even when you’re begging me for help.”

“I did not beg. You were dying to help me with something. I could see the boredom in your texts.”

“You could not!”

“I asked if you were doing anything and you just sent me the ‘meh’ emoji!”

“It was _ironic_. In reality, I was _very_ busy.”

“Doing what?”

“I might’ve napped a bit.”

Sebastian shook his head, and they finally reached his garage. Malia let go of her side of his motorcycle as soon as the kickstand was down, and took shelter within it. Once again, they were about to part soaking wet, and he couldn’t even get her home this time.

“You owe me big time, Mendes,” she said, her voice filled with annoyance that Sebastian could tell was not at all genuine. “ _Big time_.”

As she spoke, she had walked over to him, and stood on her toes until they were face to face, trying to mangle her expression into something that, in the end, had all the malice of a pouting baby penguin.

“Quit acting mad,” Sebastian said, not backing away like his instincts would’ve once told him to do. The fact that she was close enough to him that he could feel her breath on his face should’ve filled him with unbearable anxiety, but with Malia it always seemed more like a game, posing no real risk to either of them – and games, Sebastian could play.

“I’m not acting,” Malia tried and failed to keep her expression firm, to keep herself from smiling, but she eventually admitted defeat. “Okay, no. I’m not mad. But I _could_ be! And when I am, you—you’re my first victim.”

“What if I’m not even the one who made you mad?” Sebastian poked at her chest, forcing her to return to her normal height with a squeak.

“Oh, it’ll be you,” she said, tugging on his hoodie so he’d look down to face her, “it’s always you.”

They were no longer face to face, but while a height difference stood between them, Sebastian felt like the rain stopped, froze in midair, and it was like the night of the flower dance again, when they were on her porch and she was so, _so_ close to him, and their eyes were meeting so intensely – except the Malia he was with now was sober, and whatever he was feeling, she seemed to feel it too.

_Ping!_

The rain snapped back into reality and Malia looked away, confused and slightly annoyed with the cell phone she was currently digging out of her pocket. She paled as the dim glow lit up her face.

“Damn it,” she hissed, “I was supposed to meet Abby for dinner like five minutes ago. I totally spaced.”

“Tell it’s my fault,” Sebastian shrugged, trying to get their ‘moment’ of his mind as he began to close the garage door. He turned back to her and she was already typing. “That was just a _suggestion_.”

“A good one!” Malia reasoned, “because it totally is. Honestly.”

He really couldn’t argue with her, he had been the one to ask her for help, and he knew she’d never let him live down any sarcastic comment without consequence.

When she was almost to the door that led into his house, he found himself grabbing her arm gently, making her face him again.

“Thanks, you know, for helping. I guess I kinda messed with your day…”

“I told you, I’m not mad,” she said, with a hint of a laugh that made the room feel warmer – or just him, maybe, Yoba knows, “but I _am_ late, so…I’ll see you?”

“See you,” he nodded. She made for the door and he began to give his bike his undivided attention, just throwing over his shoulder a “clean yourself up a little, Abby’s got standards.”

“She’s friends with you, how high can they be?”

It was the response he wanted. There. Back to normal. Those Moment things were a hassle – he’d have to figure out how to keep them from happening again.

 

*

 

It was ten at night when Abigail finally called it quits on _Journey of the Prairie King_ , letting her controller fall to the floor dramatically, narrowly missing her and Malia’s half-empty plate of pizza bagels.

“This game is impossible,” she groaned. Malia began to slowly let her phone drift into Abby’s peripheral vision before the purple-haired girl pushed it away, “keep your filthy walkthroughs to yourself. We settle this like honest women.”

“You’re not even gonna try? I really wanna see the win screen. Just once, for my psyche.”

“What good will a dirty, hollow victory do for your psyche?”

“Dirty things do a lot for my psyche.”

Abigail had a thing for timing. As much as she wanted to laugh at Malia’s unintentional innuendo, she found it so much more entertaining watching the horrified realization creep onto her friend’s face before letting anything loose.

“If Yoba chose to strike me with lightning right now…I’d be so cool with it.”

Abigail finally lost it, her friend’s prayer for the sweet release of death sealing the deal.

“It’s not funny! That’s the second time today I’ve said something like that!”

“Hm,” Abigail was suddenly interested, “well the first wasn’t around me, and you said you were with—oh, Yoba, what’d you say to Sebastian?!”

“Nothing!” Malia defended, grunting when Abigail dodged her pillow projectile. “You’re the worst friend ever.”

What seemed to be a fist pounded on Abigail’s bedroom door, followed by Pierre’s voice.

“Some people sleep in this house, you know!”

“Sorry, dad!” Abigail yelled back with an eyeroll, “which brings me to the question—you sleeping here or going home?”

What seemed to be fear flickered across Malia’s face before she answered, “uh, yeah, I’m pretty tired so…if you’ll have me, I mean.”

Abigail got up from her bed and fetched an old sleeping bag from her closet, and tossed the pillow had thrown at her right back, hitting the other girl square in the face. After the scuffle, Malia seemed oddly solemn.

“What’s up?” Abigail asked. Malia bit her lip.

“You can’t laugh.”

“I can’t make that promise.”

Malia sighed, laying back and staring at the ceiling.

“I’m…pretty sure my house is haunted.”

 

*

 

Sebastian did not have an alarm clock. Or, maybe he did, somewhere, but it wasn’t set up. He had no alarms on his phone, and if he did, its sound would definitely not be Abigail pounding on his door and yelling “HEY!” at nine in the morning.

The bare minimum Sebastian could bring himself to do after blinking the sleep from his eyes, was open his messenger. Upon seeing Malia (known to his phone as Moldlia for the rest of her life) was the last person he had messaged, he sleepily typed an SOS.

_Your crazy friend is bugging me come get her_

Send.

He heard a familiar ping from…the other side of his door.

And, seconds later, “Crazy?! Seriously?!”

They were tag-teaming his suffering.

“Yeah, crazy!” He managed to shout, voice thick with sleep, “come back at, like, noon-thirty.”

“Come _onnn_ , Malia needs our help!”

“It’s really not that big a deal, we’ll come back—or not even—”

It had been some time since Sebastian had heard Malia sound so unsure of herself, and her tone was so different from when he had last spoken to her that it was…concerning.

It was difficult. Sebastian Mendes got out of bed early for no one but himself, and he wanted to keep that independent status as it was. He did things on his own.

But one of his friends – Yoba, it had to be the friend he kept having Moments with, of all people – seemed to be in trouble, or at least really concerned with something, and not acting like herself. And wanted his help. He was never good at keeping people in his life, but he balanced it out with being fiercely loyal to the people he _did_ have – his mom, Sam, Abby to an extent and—

—And he really did owe Malia one.

He slowly got out of bed, trudging to his door, opening it, and glowering as hard as he could.

“You’ve got five seconds,” he told both technicolored girls, and Abby stepped up immediately.

“We’re going ghost hunting.”

Sebastian let his eyes shift over to Malia, who looked embarrassed and mouthed ‘not my idea’ as best she could.

“…You’re serious aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Abby told him, “Malia hears ghosts in her house. She slept over at my house and now we’re going ghost hunting.”

“Have fun.”

“You’re part of the ‘we,’ smartass,” Abby hooked his elbow with her own before he could turn away from them, “you and Sam. We’re gonna commune with the spirits at like…ten-ish?” She looked at Malia, who shrugged, “ten-ish.”

This was probably the stupidest thing anyone had ever asked him to do, and while the occult certainly appealed to him, he knew Abby must have more planned and that there was a good chance she might accidentally set Malia’s house on fire with votive candles.

No. He needed to reign this thing in. He met Malia’s eyes again—he needed to just _stop doing that_ —and then fixed Abby with a slightly tempered glare.

“...food?”

“There will be food.”

“So…you’re in?” Malia asked.

“Yeah…yeah I guess I’m in— _do not hug me Abigail_ ,” he said evenly, and the purple-haired girl backed up accordingly. It was too early for hugs. He wasn’t properly prepared.

“Thanks,” Malia said sincerely, looking embarrassed. He never took her for e believer in ghosts, so asking something like this must’ve been pretty difficult for her. Her arms twitched, like she wanted to hug him. She resisted, because of what he’d just said, and he almost wished he hadn’t said it.

 

*

 

Sebastian arrived on the Thayer farm at 10:12 at night, the twelve extra minutes being the “ish” he had been allowed, and found—shockingly—a significant lack of ghosts.

Though the cabin on the farm was definitely still creepy, being so small and decrepit even after his mother had fixed it up, the inside was filled with Malia’s large and random collection of kitsch, and it was hard to be freaked out when she had a painting of a pig wearing an Elizabethan neck ruff she’d bought at a garage sale.

Opening the door and finding Abby and Sam there, casually talking while Malia laid on her couch, gave him the feeling of some kind of weird ghost-themed slumber party than a communion with the souls of the departed.

But maybe you could do both. He didn’t know.

He had gotten himself water and was loitering around the kitchen counter when Malia showed up beside him, surprising him with how quiet she’d been.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, “this must seem so stupid but I—I’ll come home at night and I’ll hear these noises and I—I didn’t believe in ghost but then I’ve seen whats down in the mines and…and all this stuff and…your town is _so weird_.”

“I kn—”

“And they—you know they buried my grandpa on this property so I’m thinking like, what if he’s angry with me? What if I’m not doing a good job? He trusted me. I guess the idea of someone who trusted me still being around, watching me fail, trying to talk to me…it just freaks me out so bad.”

“I’m gonna stop you from talking,” Sebastian said quickly, and Malia chewed on her bottom lip instead of saying anything more, “because you’re doing fine. Better farmer than me.”

“I grew _really_ small potatoes, Seb. Tiny. Not good potatoes.”

“I’m sure they were perfect for some…tiny human.”

She laughed quietly, “you mean like a child?”

“What the hell is a _child_?” He asked, looking as disgusted as possible. She looked like she wanted to retort, like she could get back to normal with him there, and then—

—The absolute _loudest_ caterwauling he’d ever heard echoed throughout the tiny house, and he felt Malia’s arms wrap around his chest upon hearing what must have been haunting her for days. He didn’t notice he had laid one arm over her back, shielding her from nothing.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Sam asked, wide-eyed. Abby’s expression gave off the same sentiment without her having to say anything. She flinched when there was a faint scratching sound coming from near the house’s front door.

“I did not sign up for this,” Sam said, and Sebastian walked toward the sound, despite Malia nearly squeezing the life out of him at this point.

“Chill,” he said as the scratching faded, and another wail replaced it, “yeah, I don’t think that’s a spirit.”

The sound seemed…bizarrely familiar. He’d heard something like it before, but not the exact same thing.

_Come on_ , he told himself, _you’re smart, figure it out, and she’ll be herself again_.

“Malia,” he began, and she whimpered into his hoodie in response. This was getting ridiculous, “my mom said you had this opening to a crawlspace under the porch you should fill in. Did you do it?”

“Yeah, I—” Malia finally pulled away, jumping when she realized how close she’d gotten to him, “I did it…like three days ago…”

“And you’ve been hearing this for…?” Abby seemed to be catching on.

“…Three days,” Malia said, and her eyes widened, “holy shit there’s something under my porch isn’t there?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Sebastian said.

“What’s under my porch?!”

“I don’t know! Calm down! Sam, you have your dad’s multi-tool?”

“Every day,” Sam said, and Sebastian took it from him, using Abby’s phone flashlight once outside to see the screws that attached the porch’s floorboards.

“It’s like you’re unscrewing the gates of hell,” Abby said as Sebastian used Sam’s multi-tool to work. “Slowly, building anticipation.”

“I’m undoing my mom’s work – if I can’t put it back it _is_ like unscrewing the gates of hell,” Sebastian sighed, “at least if it’s dangerous it’ll kill me first.”

“Whoa, graphic,” Malia said. Sebastian shrugged.

“Eh, the sweet hereafter and all that shit,” he said as he undid the last screw. He had to admit he was tense as he and Sam pulled up the large piece of wood together. Sam held it up, and Abby shined her light down the hole, and Sebastian…

Sebastian couldn’t hold in a laugh.

“What?” Malia asked, leaning over his shoulder, but her view was blocked. Sam eventually followed the beam of light and snickered too. “ _What?_ ”

“Are you ready…to see the face…of pure evil?” Sebastian said slowly, watching Malia’s wide eyes narrow back to the disdain he much preferred, compared to fear.

Her eyes widened again when he reached in and pulled out a dirty, scraggly ginger cat.

“Oh! Poor thing!” Abby cried. Sam began to put the floorboard back into place as opposed to watching the girls begin to coo over the feline, which didn’t seem much older than a kitten.

“I’m so sorry,” Malia told it as she took it from Sebastian’s hands. It struggled a bit, but seemed too tired, “I didn’t know you were down there! Oh, Yoba, I’m a monster…”

After a bath, some food, and a fire, the cat seemed to forgive Malia for her transgressions. However, even though Malia had decided to keep her, her new pet seemed to have a favorite human that wasn’t her.

“Aw, she loves you,” Malia said, and Sebastian saw a hint of jealousy in her eyes as her new pet crawled all over him, “and not me.”

“You almost killed her,” Abby pointed out.

“Shut up! Accident!”

Really, all Sebastian remembered after the Cute Thing Craziness died down was that Malia suggested they all just stay since it was so late and getting cold.

From the pain in his shoulder that only came with hours of sleeping on the floor, he remembered what his decision had been.

Oddly, he was the first one up. Sam was taking up the entire couch like a lazy king, and Malia’s head and arms poked out from under the comforter she’d brought down to the floor, which also had an Abby-sized lump beneath it. He felt an odd vibration in the crook of his elbow and saw that the cat had made his arm into a pillow, purring loudly.

“Mmf,” the mumbling was accompanied by the sound of shifting fabric, and Sebastian saw Malia sit up and yawn, her sleepy eyes landing on his. Then, after a tiny spark she seemed to feel too, she stared down at the cat. “You’re trapped.”

“Looks like it,” he murmured, “what now?”

“Nothing. You’re stuck here until she moves.”

“What if she never moves?”

“Then you get to spend a hellish eternity on a farm. With me.”

She crawled over toward him, laying back down on her stomach close enough to pet the cat. It snuggled deeper into Sebastian’s arms, which only made her giggle with indignation once more, whispering a menacing _you will love me one day_ and continuing to pet it.

The air between them was still, and quiet save for their breathing and the cat’s purrs, and it was probably the most comfortable Sebastian had felt around multiple people at once. He never slept over anywhere, for any reason, but here he was with his friends and a cat, and one of those friends just happened to be a girl with blue eyes that wouldn’t stray off of him.

“What?” he asked her quietly, not wanting to ruin whatever it was they were sharing.

“That whole spending a hellish eternity on a farm with me thing,” she whispered, suddenly looking away, “that’s where you’d say something about how you’d rather go swimming in toxic waste. That’s your thing.”

She was hiding a smile, and he refused to let one appear on his face as well.

“Guess I forgot,” was all he could think to say. Really, that had been the moment when she had started coming towards him, and he had been thinking about she was so unafraid of approaching someone after just having awoken, teeth not brushed and bedhead not tamed, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen that in anyone before. She had wanted to pet a cat – and maybe, just maybe, she also wanted to be next to him – and that desire outweighed anything else.

It was…interesting. Interesting in a way his gut was telling him wasn’t familiar or welcome, and he should stop thinking about it, about h—

“I won’t tell anyone,” she told him quietly, “that you’re losing your edge.”

He hadn’t noticed that she’d gravitated towards his hand, poking at his fingers with hers in a childish way he would have never allowed before, and it became a game of them trying to make the other laugh loudly enough to wake their friends. But what she said never left his mind, and as he technically won their game (in reality Malia had squealed in delight when the cat came to lay on her arm instead), he couldn’t help but think _yes. Whatever you do, please don’t tell anyone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ have some feelings, Seb, i promise they're lots of fun right guys


	5. Feelings Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stardew Valley Fair is here and so are the emotions that come as the weather gets colder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to give y'all a chapter because my semester starts Monday and the content of this one has been on my mind for some time now.

Malia was in trouble.

It had taken her weeks to admit it, to fully realize exactly how much trouble she was in, but she was well into fall before she could say it. In her head. Never out loud.

She might have a crush on her friend. No, probably her _best_ friend as of late, though labels like that seemed childish and stupid and didn’t even cover half of what she would lose if she screwed everything up by saying anything. So, really, ignoring it was the best thing to do. The adult thing to do. The _responsible_ thing to do.

“Okay, okay, your _stupid_ Indigo Fire Dragon takes out my poor Midnight Elf Warrior,” Malia said, taking the card out of the center of her kitchen table and placing it face down in her little card graveyard while Sebastian smiled that stupid adorable smug smirk she needed to wipe off his face as soon as possible. “ _But_ , my Necro-Soul Box Trap gives you half damage.”

“You only say it’s stupid because it’s not in your deck,” Sebastian said, his voice sounded like he was chiding a misbehaving toddler, “and half damage is fine. You’re still hopeless. Might as well give up now.”

“Grab a fork to eat your _stupid_ words, Mendes,” Malia said, “because Savage Starling is here and she’s about to kick dragon ass.”

“You do _not_ have a Savage Starling card,” Sebastian challenged, eyes narrowed. Damn it, that was cute too.

“Bam!” She slammed her ace in the hole on the table, effectively ending their game, “saved the best for _last_ chump.”

As he slowly removed his last card, Sebastian, stared at her in awe, “where the hell did you get one of those?”

“I told you, my dad’s a hopeless nerd. This thing is like a family heirloom at this point.”

Malia went to grab the card at the same time he was reaching to look at it, their hands brushed against each other and Malia felt like a fucking third-grader in the way she blushed and snatched her hand back. Sebastian took the opposite approach and simply froze in place for a second. He didn’t look at her, ducking his head slightly so that his hair covered his face.

This was not the way adults dealt with things. They seemed to both know that, but for some reason it kept happening. The occasional touches and prolonged eye contact and their faces getting just a little too close were all getting to be unbearable on Malia’s part. She wanted to be able to read him, but he seemed determined not to let her once he realized she had gotten good at it.

This was going to kill her.

“So, you, uh, you ready for the fair tomorrow?” He asked, turning the card over and over in his hand, head propped up by his other one.

“I…I mean I guess,” she said, “Lewis is super serious about me participating in all these events. I don’t know if I can live up to his expectations.”

“Don’t worry about Lewis’ expectations,” Sebastian sighed, “I promise you that no one else in town thinks like he does—everyone else is just there to have fun. Or, in my case, complain about how much fun everyone’s having.”

“A man of many talents,” Malia mused, “that’s what you did at the Luau and the egg hunt.”

“You can’t see it, but there’s a always this tiny raincloud over my head, just to make sure I don’t get too happy.”

Malia just snickered, regaining composure quickly, “so I shouldn’t care about what just one person thinks?”

“Ideally, you shouldn’t care what anyone thinks. If it’s gonna keep you from being you then it’s not worth it.”

He seemed to stiffen again after that, as quickly as Malia’s heart skipped a tiny beat. She could’ve taken the statement as a general you but the way he shifted his eyes and the ducked his head told her that he wouldn’t have said it to anyone else, and he was a little unsure if he’d wanted her to hear it.

She’d liked hearing it.

A silence stretched between them, and Malia felt everything she’d been avoiding yet again.

She’d been told that lo— _attraction_ felt like a raging fire, powerful, passionate, uncontrollable, but the silences that she and Sebastian shared were the opposite. This was cool, quiet, and soft—something delicate that didn’t need controlling, maybe just the occasional tending. Where she was told she should feel fire she felt the warmth of embers mixing with the chill of a cloudy fall day. So it wasn’t that—the… _L word_ —because this was too…gentle.

But she liked it, and when he was gone _it_ was gone and sometimes all she could think of was how long she could go without it. That timespan had been growing shorter and shorter.

“So, think the Stardew Valley fair is ready for me?”

“No,” he told her, “they won’t know what hit ‘em.”

After a few moments he left her, as it was close to ten. Once the door closed behind him, Banshee—the cat that still didn’t love her quite as much as Sebastian—wailed at it, wanting her favorite person to return.

“Me too, cat,” Malia muttered, stretching a rubber band around her deck of cards. “Me too.”

*

“How did you get so good at this?” Malia asked as Sebastian hit yet another target with a slingshot. “You practice on small animals as a kid?”

Sebastian let his hands fall and his jaw drop, “what, like some kinda monster? No. It was other children. Ask Sam.”

“That was my next guess,” Malia told him.

“Mhmm.”

“It was!”

Sebastian shook his head, getting his head back in the game and finishing off the last few targets. He felt cool then, for just a second, just before the game operator said something about wishing he could shoot and flirt at the same time too, at which point both he and Malia seemed to choke on nothing but air.

“He wasn’t—”

“We aren’t—”

“Just take the tokens, kid,” the man said, shoving a fistful of plastic tokens into Sebastian hands and shooing them both away, “people are waitin’.”

Sebastian and Malia squeezed themselves out of line, red-faced and with at least Sebastian wondering if the other’s protests were reflexive or genuine.

“Here,” Sebastian held out the hand full of star tokens toward Malia, “buy yourself something pretty.”

“Wow. Fifty star tokens. Big Spender.”

“Okay, uh, how many did you win?”

Malia wordlessly snatched the tokens out of his hand before he could change his mind. She counted them again.

“I could probably get some tiny plastic bugs or something,” she mused, “plant them in Abby’s room and see if she kills me.”

“I’ll miss you,” he told her solemnly, and she snorted, “you know, you could win more if you’d just set up your display.”

“I still have time!” She said defensively, “and anyway, the encouragement is nice and all but have you _seen_ the other displays? Pierre had really pretty cabbage and you know what _I_ got, Seb? My tiny potatoes.”

“Don’t let my dad scare you,” both Sebastian and Malia jumped when Abby appeared next to them, “but he does kind of take winning way too seriously. Frankly I’m torn—I feel like someone else should win, but I don’t wanna hear about it all night when we get home.”

“No pressure there,” Malia said. Sebastian fixed Abby with an unimpressed stare, and she shrugged sheepishly.

“But if I could vote, I’d be team Tiny Potato,” she amended, and it at least made Malia laugh, though the nerves were still there.

“Where’s Sam at?” Sebastian asked, standing on his toes despite being taller than most of the people around him.

“Oh! That’s a story I got for ya,” Abby said, her eyes devious, “he’s by the bridge with Penny. I don’t know if he’s struck out yet.”

“Why would he strike out? Penny’s super nice, so’s Sam,” Malia said, “Ugh, now I’m imagining them together and it’s _cute_.”

“Gross,” Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“One day, Sebastian, you’re gonna stop thinking girls are icky, and then all the girls better watch out,” Abby told him. He rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” Malia said after a moment, “if Sam can talk to his crush, I can set up a grange display. I guess.”

“What if I told you that all the tokens I just gave you were secretly lucky?” Sebastian prodded, and Malia gave him a half smile that betrayed her frayed nerves. “Because…they are. I just forgot to mention it until now.”

“Why would they be lucky?”

“Everything I touch turns to gold.”

“Oh, get outta here and let me focus, the both of you.”

“What’d I do?” Abby asked, but Malia had already heaved her knapsack onto her shoulder and wandered over towards her empty display. This, unfortunately, left the violet-haired girl’s attention fall onto Sebastian, “lucky tokens, hm?”

The way she was looking at him made him feel like there were pins and needles beneath his skin, it was that mischievous, _knowing_ glint in her eyes and the amusement taking over her face slowly that made him want to take a step back. But he couldn’t let her smell any weakness, or she’d think whatever she suspected was right.

And if she was suspecting what she thought she was, it was definitely _not_ correct. Not even a little bit.

“She’s—you saw how nervous she was, I don’t want Lewis giving her shit her first year. She doesn’t deserve that.”

Abby didn’t respond, she just held his gaze until her eyes softened. He let his head turn towards the displays, which were in the process of being judged. He felt Abby’s hand on his arm, and her voice was soft.

“You’re in it pretty deep, aren’t you Seb?”

He couldn’t answer.

*

Honestly, Sebastian wasn’t sure why Lewis would say someone came in fourth in a competition with four competitors. Everyone knew it meant last, worst, the least good, and every other modifier that he knew Malia was throwing at herself as she packed everything up.

Malia wasn’t a crier, and Sebastian almost wished she was. He could read an emotion if it was obvious, but her eyes were hollow, solemn, and all he could tell was that she wasn’t exactly walking on air. It was an expression that told him any inquiries would be met with “I’m fine,” and that may have been enough for Sebastian months ago, but not now. It just wasn’t enough to let her go.

“Hey,” he said carefully. She had her back to him when she parroted his greeting back. “If it matters, I thought it was cool.”

She continued packing up, and her lack of reaction was unnerving.

“Does it matter?” He asked.

“Of course it matters,” she told him when she turned around. “That’s what’s…I don’t know, I guess that’s what’s bugging me. My friends liked it, that should be enough, but I just feel…” she sighed, “I don’t know.”

Sebastian thought for a moment, then held out his hand, “lemme see those tokens real fast.”

Malia didn’t say anything, just giving them back to him. He felt bad leaving her for a second, but he was on a mission to catch the prize tent vendor before she left. After making possibly the stupidest exchange in his life, he returned to Malia, who looked surprised to still see him.

“I thought you were leaving…” she said, and he didn’t know why the admission offended him.

“No,” he said, “is it not my job to escort you home from festivals?”

“No, because I can’t pay you,” she gave him that half smile again, and it felt like a tiny victory, “and if you say I pay you in my clever company I’m gonna puke.”

“If I ever say anything like that, assume I’m possessed,” he told her, “and remember that it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve puked on me.”

“I got you new shoes, let it go.”

“It’s not something you forget, is all I’m saying.”

They set out for her farm, letting crickets and rustling leaves fill the companionable silence between them. It was getting colder and colder, and Sebastian swore he saw his own breath, so he was confused when Malia sat on her porch steps instead of going inside. She didn’t ask him to join her, but if he just walked away, he wouldn’t be able to get this off his mind.

When he sat down, she sighed.

“You shouldn’t have to do this all the time,” she murmured, playing with the strings of her jacket instead of looking at him. He just waited for her to elaborate. “I’m an adult, I should be able to deal with my own problems, I shouldn’t…get like this. Make people worry about me.”

“So this…this isn’t about the fair,” Sebastian didn’t bother to phrase it like a question.

“No, it not…It’s just, every time I fail I see—I hear…” she couldn’t seem to get her thoughts together. “Listen, there’s a reason I only ever mention my dad or my brother when I talk about my family and stuff.”

He said nothing, and she glanced at him curiously.

“Seriously? In it for the long haul?”

“I have nowhere else to be.”

“Okay, so…the Saga of My Mother. Shit…” she began slowly, “she and my dad split when I was like…Yoba, eleven, maybe? A time when you really don’t need your only available parent to be endlessly critical of every single thing you do. I wanted to live with my dad but he had just got laid off so they decided he couldn’t take care of us. My mom was this—some kind of government employee and had like three degrees and—I wasn’t…her. I wasn’t good at school, I didn’t have any extracurriculars that’d get me a job after high school, it got to the point where I wanted to throw up every time she asked me about my day or what I was doing or if I’d asked my teachers about extra credit. Just seeing her coming made me want to run away.”

Sebastian wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. He knew sub-par parental figures, but while Demetrius was an annoyance, he was never afraid of the man.

“So…I did run away. I turned eighteen, used the savings bond she got me when I was a damn _fetus_ and moved out, got an entry-level job at Joja and thought I would feel better. But all my friends moved away or were busy with college and I was alone and I had to face the facts that I wasn’t…living my life without her. Everything I was doing, everything I did to get where I was was done out of spite instead of anything I really wanted. So I…I remembered this letter grandpa gave me and I jumped on it. Because that was what I wanted. So I shot an email to my parents and my dad was cool and my mom decided…that’s it, she has no daughter.

“And then I get here and there’s all these people I feel like I need to impress and then there’s people like you and your mom and Abby and Sam who say I shouldn’t care ad just be myself but I don’t know who that is. I spent all my life trying to get the attention of someone who was supposed to love me unconditionally and I don’t know…how to get that out of my head. I fail at something and suddenly I’m in high school again, having a panic attack over getting a C- on a chem test. And I don’t know how to let it go.”

It was making sense to him now, how everything seemed to hit Malia harder than most, how she could go from confident to meek so quickly that, the more he got to know her, downright scared him. Sebastian didn’t know what it was like being scared of a parent, but he definitely knew what it was like for the smallest things to stick the longest.

He could offer platitudes. He could say “that sucks” and she’d accept it and go inside, but it wouldn’t help. And he was done with doing the bare minimum when it came to her.

It was scaring him, definitely.

“Demetrius…has never once said he was proud of me.”

Malia met his eyes and this time neither pulled away. He could read her now—embarrassed that she’d gone on so long, maybe slightly relieved that he was taking the onus of conversation off of her, and an empathetic desire to know more.

“I mean, I don’t care anymore, but I used to. A lot. I entered science fairs and, like, when I was fifteen there was this competition in Zuzu City where you had 24 hours to program a game – it didn’t have to be _good_ it just had to work, and I _won_ and my mom—she wouldn’t shut up about it. Everyone in town was sick of hearing about it, you know my mom, and Demetrius just…acted like it never happened. And this was at the point where I was realizing I should stop waiting for him to acknowledge anything I did, that I existed, that I wasn’t just some box of leftovers he had to deal with when he married my mom, and Maru came along and then he had his own kid so I was just…there.

“I… _never_ knew my father. I don’t even really know his name, I never asked, because he didn’t want me either so…why bother. And I guess when mom got married little four-year-old Seb thought he’d finally have a dad and that—I’m not good enough for him either so. Uh. I just didn't know...what else I could do.”

Sebastian had never told anyone this before, he wished he could have rehearsed it so he would’ve known how much his voice would shake and his composure would slip and _fuck_ he was trying to make someone feel better with his historically chill demeanor and it was almost gone and _fuck_.

There was pressure on his left side, and he realized Malia was leaning against him, sniffling and _Yoba,_ he’d made her cry? He was the worst friend ever.

How could he fix it? That didn’t involve not resisting the urge to put his arm around her because she was so _close_ and it seemed like the right thing to do. Like something he really wanted to do.

He took his dumb fair prize out of his pocket, letting her catch a glimpse, and her half-laugh felt like a victory.

“Did you really buy a fucking tiny alien?” She could barely get the words out, she was shaking with a giggle he couldn’t hear.

“He was worth it, and he’s gonna fix all our problems,” he told her, shaking the tiny, green plastic alien slightly. “Name him.”

“I don’t know any good alien names!”

“Then give him a bad one.”

“He’s…” she thought for a moment, “he’s Snorp and he’s from Mars.”

“He’s from Jupiter.”

“Jupiter’s all _gas_ , genius.”

“He floats.”

The autumn night seemed to warm up when, to quiet her laughter, she buried her face in his side, and he didn’t realize until he squeezed her slightly that he had, indeed, wrapped his arm around her. He didn’t move it.

*

_Ping!_

The tri-tone was enough to startle Sam from sleep, and he cursed himself for keeping his volume up so high just so he could hear his alarm in the morning. He turned over, toward his window and away from the nightstand on which his phone rested. Unless it was from Penny, whose number he had finally gotten after ages of working up the nerve to ask, he didn’t care. And Penny was a reasonable person who went to sleep at a reasonable time, so the likelihood that it was her was essentially zero.

_Ping!_

“Mmmf…”

_Ping!_

Unfortunately, his two ther friends were night owls and also apparently trying to ruin his life, so he finally grabbed his phone, alight with notifications from Abigail.

**sam**

**Sam**

**are u awake**

**im guessing no**

**listen I have a v important mission and I need an Eagle 2**

**it’s called operation get Grumps McGee a gf and it’s super covert**

**u in?**

Opening his messenger and linking at the influx of light, he snickered as he replied.

**im in**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I need to be honest and say that writing Malia's stuff was easier for me because I had it planned out but as I was writing Sebastian's I just kept thinking more and more about his life and I did actually cry because he's my baby and deserves better.
> 
> And I feel like I keep giving Sam the short on the stick in terms of Squad activities so I needed to set up his role, because he does play a decent-sized one. And Abby can't stop, won't stop.
> 
> #JusticeForTinyTaters


	6. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is sure if they're ready

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even think you guys are ready for this

“She’s just _so_ amazing.”

“You’ve said that about six times since we started talking.”

“She just _is_ though! I don’t know what to do.”

“Talk to her? She’s your friend. You do talk, don’t you?”

“Well _—_ _yeah_ , but not about...feelings…”

“Sam,” Sebastian implored, his elbows resting uncomfortably on the keyboard in his best friend’s room, “unless this conversation ends in you deciding to ask Penny out, I don’t see the point in having it again.”

The conversation was nothing new. Every now and then, when things between him and Sam got quiet _—_ no games, no music, just the two of them _—_ Sam decided it was a good time to talk about personal stuff. It wasn’t a bad thing, and it had allowed Sebastian some much needed venting from time to time, but when the flow of their discussions drifted towards the local tutor, Sam seemed eventually trapped in an endless loop of “will I or won’t I?”

His infatuation with his younger brother’s teacher had been growing steadily over the years, and the only thing that hadn’t changed was Sam’s approach to her: ...he had none.

“Okay, hear me out,” Sam was lying on his bed so as to gesture upwards, as though the ceiling were a projector and he a museum tour guide, “I ask her to dinner. Option one: she says no, it gets awkward, she can’t bear to see me, and so Vince doesn’t get to get his lessons, and so I ruin my little bro’s life along with my own.”

“False. She’d probably still pick up Vince even if she couldn’t bear the sight of your face.”

“...Thanks. Option two: she says _yes_ , and I fuck it up royally. Like we go to a place in the city and I can’t pay. Or I catch fire. Or she catches fire. Or _both—_ ”

“How did you jump from fancy dinner to full-on immolation?” Sebastian straightened up, honestly somewhat interested. “Like what’s the logical progression involved in that?”

“It doesn’t _matter_ , dude. Either way, I screw it up, and she hates me. And then she’s gone, out of my life. At least the way things are now I can still talk to her. But it just doesn’t feel like enough anymore.”

Sam let out a heavy sigh, groaned, and rolled over until his face was in his pillow. He groaned again, the sound muffled but just as pathetic.

“Look, you know I’m a pessimist. Huge one. And even _I’m_ telling you to pick up your phone and ask her if she wants to hang out, because my worldly pessimistic future-sight tells me that the absolute worst thing that could happen is she says no.” Sebastian insisted, trying to quell the feeling in his stomach that maybe he was getting more and more familiar with Sam’s predicament lately.

“You don’t have a future-sight.”

“I knew you were gonna say that.”

“Fuck off,” Sam said, sitting up just in time for Sebastian to see the tail-end of an eyeroll, “so I should trust your worldly, inhuman knowledge on this?”

“No greater knowledge to be found,” Sebastian sat up straight as well, now playing random keys on the synthesizer, the volume nearly muted so only he could hear the off-key composition his brain was conjuring, “you need my help?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, step one, pick up your ph _—_ ”

“No, Seb, I need your help. Your chill. If she wants to hang out, you gotta come with me.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure me third-wheeling is gonna derail any romantic possibilities.”

“Then do one of those double things. Call Malia and _—_ ”

Sebastian had chosen either the very best or very worst time for his index finger to land on a key with a record scratching sound.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, why would _—_ ” Sebastian didn’t like stuttering, never looked good, “why would...where does she come in, in this equation, exactly? Explain...your reasoning. For that. What you just said.”

Sam’s expression changed suddenly, to that of a man who had just betrayed some kind of secret, but he shook it off, his insistent bravado returning quickly.

“I just…can’t think of any girls besides her and Abby you can stand to be around for more than ten minutes, and Abby’s semester started last week so she’s gonna be busy—”

“The classes are _online_.”

“It’s the last few credits she needs and specifically told me not to bug her with anything stupid. And, according to _you,_ this is stupid. So that leaves your moping buddy,” Sam turned surprisingly serious, “dude, I don’t wanna screw this up. Just do this one thing—it’ll just be you two hanging out like you usually do anyways.”

Sebastian withdrew, slowly, collecting himself. No, it wouldn’t be like that at all, because stupid Sam had to tack on—or at least _imply_ —the word _date_ to the outing. And that would’ve been fine months ago, but now the thought of it made it a little harder to breathe, anxiety flaring up. Being around Malia had gotten more and more difficult recently, anyway—specifically of how _easy_ it was to be in her company. Sebastian had only just begun to admit to himself that he could feel an incredible _something_ between them that he liked, and he didn’t know if she felt it too.

So, he thought perhaps it was best for everyone if he never found out.

But here was Sam, with his, admittedly, mutually beneficial opportunity and the expectant doe-eyed expression and he figured he could at least give him the _illusion_ of hope.

“... _fine_ , _”_ Sebastian huffed, taking out his phone and beginning to type.

_TO: Moldlia Thayer_

_Sam wants to ask Penny out but won’t go alone he wants me to double with him or something, the only thing getting me out of this is you saying no. Say no. I cannot express how badly I need you to say no._

The ellipses appeared on his screen, then disappeared. His brow wrinkled in confusion until Sam’s cell phone dinged across the room.

“You told her to say no?!” Sam asked after reading the text presumably from Malia, “Dude!”

“Self-preservation instinct!” Sebastian defended, sending the girl a quick “ _TRAITOR”_ for good measure.

“Anyway, she said she’s down.”

“ _What?_ ”

Against everything he stood for, Sebastian Mendes actually used his phone for a phone call. When the target picked up, she sounded mid-way through an evil laugh.

“I dug up a cat from underneath your porch! In the dark!”

“ _I’m like a genie,_ ” she chided, “ _I will grant the favors but with conditions._ ”

“Okay but this is literally the opposite of what I asked you for.”

“ _Nope. You asked me on a double date. Indirectly. While being a grumpling about it._ ”

“I did n— _stop laughing_ or I’ll strangle you,” Sebastian told a cackling Sam, “I don’t want to do this.”

_“I know! But we’re making a love connection—”_

“Whoa, whoa,” Sam interrupted, “no one said anything about love. It’s a date. And she hasn’t even said yes yet.”

“ _A_ like- _connection for your best friend in the world. That’s perhaps the most benevolent of all favors. You owe me a trophy. I am a saint.”_

“You are the devil.”

“ _I’ll take either. Sam, text me the details when Penny says yes, because she will, and Seb...look nice. Don’t embarrass me.”_

She hung up before Sebastian could argue further. He gently put his phone down, put the keyboard volume up to max, and let his head fall onto it.

*

Sebastian had no “nice” clothes. Even if he did, he wouldn’t wear them because then that teal-haired traitor would think she’d won the battle he was almost certainly making up in his head.

However, Penny had told Sam she’d love to go with him wherever, and Sam—out of reflex and possibly due to watching too much TV—had suggested a movie. Pelican town had no movie theater. So Sebastian had an hour before they left for Zuzu City to see whatever schlock Sam had chosen to impress his date.

For some reason, his regular old clothes didn’t seem right. The solution seemed to be that in lieu of a plain black hoodie and black jeans, and striped black _and gray_ hoodie and gray jeans were the solution. He couldn’t look too different after all, or else his family might noti—

“Well what are you all dressed up for?”

Sebastian looked at his mother, brow furrowed in confusion at her statement, “this isn’t really what I’d call dressing up.”

“Sweetheart, you’re not wearing your ratty old jacket, I’ll take what I can get,” his mother said simply, “anyway, all you said is you’re going to the city tonight, not why or who with, forgive me for being a little bit curious.”

“Sam asked Penny on a date and he needs me to be there so he doesn’t look like an idiot,” Sebastian said, trying to figure out how to get rid of this feeling of being a grown man interrogated by his mother.

His mother’s mouth twitched as she tried to make sense of what he said, “is this one of those things where you tell him what to say through an earpiece from around a corner? Because, Sebby—I love you dearly, remember that—wingman doesn’t sound like something you’d be…into.”

_Or good at_ , Sebastian finished for her, silently.

“No, no, he just wants the pressure off so I’m going with…” oh Yoba if he wasn’t in a minefield before he sure as hell was now, “and it’s _not a date_ , can’t stress that enough—Malia and I will…take the edge off. Of his real date. With our not date.”

His mother’s face had been growing more and more amused the more he tried to defend himself and it had never felt like a better time to make himself scarce.

“Anywaygonnabelatebye,” he punctuated his word vomit with a door slam, which couldn’t drown out his mother’s amused laughter and he wondered, for a second, if Sam’s fears might come true and he could spontaneously combust, because that didn’t sound half bad.

*

“This…should not be this hard.”

Malia stared into Banshee’s green, uncaring eyes for some kind of—Yoba, she didn’t know, validation?—some kind of reaction to her having three outfits on her bed and her closet still open.

“It really shouldn’t, right? Because it’s not a date. He didn’t ask me out. So I shouldn’t be doing this whole ‘what am I gonna wear’ deal anyway, right?”

Banshee purred, looking half asleep.

“But seriously, _what am I gonna wear_?”

She considered a dress—a casual one she’d brought with her when she moved despite knowing there was no reason for a farmer to wear one, the one she'd taken to the flower dance fiasco of all things—but it was cold out.

But she had leggings.

But it would send the wrong message.

But she didn’t know what message she wanted to send, anyway.

Fuck it.

Within minutes she had that seafoam green dress on with her thermal leggings and a bomber jacket that pretty much rendered any dainty femininity that came with a pastel-colored dress null and void. This outfit was as confused and anxious as she was. It was perfect.

Her cell phone went off before she could convince herself she was making a big mistake, and she saw that it was Sebastian, and reading his _“I’m outside”_ just made her roll her eyes and shout, “would it really kill you to come up to the door and knock?”

“…I’m afraid of splinters,” He managed to keep his tone deadpan even when shouting through her door.

“You’re lazy is what you are,” she said, too low for him to hear, but her mood had been brightened by the tone Sebastian had set for the evening—normal teasing, no awkwardness necessary, they were just helping out a friend.

…And then he ruined it with the way he looked at her when she stepped outside. He gave her a thorough once-over…and then a twice-over, and he looked like he was holding something back, like he wanted to say something but had lost his words. She worried her bottom lip when he finally dared to look at her face, and she worked up the courage to get that mood back.

“Never seen a girl in a dress before?” She said with a nervous laugh. It seemed to snap him out of it.

“No, I—well, I mean yeah, I just—” He stuttered, “anyway, uh…Sam, Penny…car. Yeah.”

“Malia nodded, hopping down the steps of her porch and into the old car Malia didn’t even know Sam had. Penny was in the front seat chatting with him, and Malia smiled a bit.

“They’re good together,” she murmured. She looked at Sebastian, “is he really that worried?”

“I don’t think…” Sebastian began, pausing for a second, “I haven’t seen him want something as much as this. Not for a long time, anyway.”

He opened the car door for her before going to the other side, and once he was seated beside her, he added, “also Sam has the aux cord and his playlist sucks so…get ready for two hours of adult alternative.”

“Get that negativity outta here, you vaporwave loving piece of shit.”

*

Despite being over at Malia’s house and vice-versa, Sebastian hadn’t noticed how much this woman liked to talk during movies. In the theater. With other people. He would’ve been fine with this if the previous two conditions were not currently in play. But they were. So he should be annoyed.

And he was annoyed – because she was guessing major plot points that had no chance of being correct.

Sebastian had an aversion to sitting in large crowds of people in general, and when he was forced to go to a movie or, Yoba forbid, a _play_ , talking only drew more attention to oneself. And he was always a fan of _no_ attention whatsoever.

But Malia was guessing the end and, more importantly, she was _wrong_. It was his duty as a friend to show her the error of her ways.

“How can you _possibly_ believe that dude’s gonna make it out alive?” He hissed in response to one of her drawn conclusions.

“It’s a genre thing,” she whispered back, “this is a standard rom-com, the handsome dudes _rarely_ die in rom-coms.”

“He is so dead,” he whispered, then paused to metaphorically dodge an aggressive “Shh!” from someone behind him. He could tell by her shaking shoulders that she was doing that soundless giggle he’d reluctantly begun to find cute. “He’s gonna get cancer or _something_. The girl’s life is way too perfect, there’s gotta be drama.”

“Things can be easy sometimes, Sebastian,” she huffed.

There was a little more back and forth on the matter, with neither changing their position, when Sebastian received a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see a disgruntled theater employee glaring down at him.

“I’m sorry, if you can’t be courteous to other theater guests, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave.”

Sebastian turned around, looking at a sheepish Malia, and a nervous looking Sam and Penny, who, to his surprised, both seemed resigned to get up.

“No, no, sit down,” he told them, “uh…it was my bad, so—”

“Mine too,” Malia cut in, “we’ll go.”

She leaned over to Sam, whispering something Sebastian caught as ‘text us when it’s over,’ and began leaving her seat, which required Sebastian to get up to allow her out. She seemed thoroughly embarrassed when she grabbed his wrist and led him out of the theater, and he could feel the pent-up tension in her grip alone.

Sure enough, once they were out, she groaned loudly.

“I can’t believe I did that…” She found a nice wall to rest her head against, in a position that looked like she was giving herself a time-out. “Never take me to the movies again.”

“I’ll never take you _stupid_ movies again,” he amended for her, “this one just gave us too much material to work with.”

“Wish this place had an arcade to hang in for another…” she checked her phone, “another _hour_ , jeez. Maybe the guy _does_ kick it.”

“Five gold says he does,” Sebastian told her, “and…an arcade?”

“I mean, I don’t want to…I…” she bit her lip in that way he was also starting to find cute, _damn it_ , “whatever you’re comfortable with.”

He suddenly felt like that boring, clingy piece of seaweed she’d shaken off her ankle the third time they’d met on the beach. When they drove into the city he’d seen her eyes go wide with fascination as they went through the downtown area, and he _knew_ she was dying to explore it. But she was content – or pretending to be – with sticking around the theater because she figured he wouldn’t want to. Months ago, they could have just gone their separate ways and met up later, after doing as they pleased.

But she was trying to compromise.

So they could stay together.

And suddenly the theater must have turned their heat on too high because it was very, very warm in there now all of a sudden. And she was still looking at him, waiting for his opinion and _Yoba_ did he even have an opinion? Obviously she knew what he would prefer, but she felt bad, and he just _couldn’t_ let that last, so she had to feel good.

“We could…go somewhere,” he told her. “I mean…a whole hour just waiting, we should wait somewhere interesting.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, but he caught the spark in her eyes at the idea, “I mean, it’s a Friday night and I know Zuzu is way bigger than where I used to live so—it might be kind of…intense.”

“I…am going to be bold,” he said, “but the boldness needs to happen now before I can think on it too much so, uh…shall we?”

“Okay, right,” she said, and the excitement in her voice was clear, “now stick with me, kiddo. I got the city smarts.”

“You are _three months_ older than me,” he grumbled as she pulled him along, out the theater doors, and into a lively Friday night.

The square in which the theater was located was completely alive, despite the fall chill falling over everyone. For the most part it was people going into restaurants and bars, or gathering around some arguably talented street musicians.

And as soon as ‘street musicians’ became a part of his train of thought, they seemed to become an integral part of his night. She was listening to the too, he saw, and plucked some gold from her pocket from a guitarist playing what seemed to be a slow song that sounded familiar, but he couldn’t name. The moment she turned back to him, she struck.

“Dance with me.”

He wondered if some distant car had screeched to a halt or if the sound was just in his head. He had been expecting something crazy, not something so…innocent.

But dancing with his Just Friend in public, upon further thought, seemed pretty crazy.

“…what.”

“I said dance with me, dumbass,” she laughed, “cashing in an IOU, as someone once said.”

“Okay, explain the logic behind that, because as far as our little favor trade goes—”

“ _Not_ the favor trade,” she said, stepping closer to him, “I may have been drunk and stupid, but after that dumb flower dance I remember _you_ , Sebastian William Mendes—”

“That’s not my middle name.”

“—Sebastian _Whatever_ Mendes…said that if I asked you to dance with me, you would.”

“Okay, I don’t think that’s exactly what I said,” he told her, “and if I _did_ , it was in regards to the flower dance, which isn’t until the spring.”

“But,” she said, “you hate the flower dance. I can get you out of the commitment you _totally_ made…if you dance with me right now. No stupid suit, no mom and friends around to see you. Pretty sweet deal.”

He glared at her, because damn it she had a point, and she was smiling like she knew she was close to winning this battle, if she hadn’t already. But he wasn’t going down easy.

“Do you even know how to dance?”

“I told you about my mom, you don’t think I had to suffer through at least _one_ cotillion in my entire life?”

“Cotillion?”

“Stupid parties that teach you social graces and how to be ladylike, all the niceties.”

“…so where’d all that go?”

She pouted, and then rushed him, taking one of his hands and placing it on her hip, one of her hands landed on his shoulder.

“…And then,” she said, and he hadn’t even realized she had been talking because once she’d gotten _so close_ and placed his hand where it now was his brain had scrambled, “as you know, your formal dance aficionado, you…our other hands go together like this.”

She held his other hand loosely in hers, and she must have felt that his palms were sweaty ( _damn it damn it damn it just be chill_ ) because she looked up, and in her eyes he could still see the humor, the spark, but deeper he found her silent _is this okay?_

He didn’t answer, choosing to finish the task of lacing their fingers together. Her hand twitched at the action, and he heard her let out a breath that seemed rooted in something more – relief? Nerves? Really, the only thing he could hold onto was if she was as nervous about… _this_ as he was.

Because with that small action, a reciprocation of her advances, she seemed thrown off – he was sure she’d wanted this, but hadn’t thought that she would get it. Get this far. And it was ridiculous, because they were just _holding hands_ , absently swaying to music, their bodies and their faces closer than they had ever been before, this was so simple but to him it seemed so _far_.

Fuck, any other adult would call this nothing. A _high-schooler_ would call this nothing.

He looked down at her, face nearly hidden by her hair, and his stomach seemed to flip when he saw her expression – one of a person who would definitely never call this closeness to him _nothing._

“It’s usually at this point I’d have to twirl you,” he said softly. She let her face fall into his chest to disguise a laugh, and he didn’t move away. “It’s a pretty advanced maneuver but I think you could handle it.”

“I’ll have you know, I can screw up the simplest of tasks,” she replied, “try me.”

He did, twirling her the same way he did Abigail every year, but it turned Malia really did have a talent for bungling. She tripped on her own loose shoelace and was unceremoniously slammed back into him, her back meeting his chest as she cackled.

“I _told_ you!”

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” he said in between bouts of laughter. He managed to turn her back around to face him after they both regained their balance and he was forcefully reminded of just how close her face was to his.

The guitarist had stopped playing, he didn’t know when, and while he was sure there was applause, he didn’t hear it. Nothing seemed to exist outside this little bubble they’d locked themselves into, and they were no longer dancing. There was no movement to focus on, just her, her face, the way she was looking at him, the way her arms were snaking around his neck and he finally felt her body gently lined up with his when his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her in. The clouds that their breaths became were indistinguishable from each other, and Sebastian was terrified.

No amount of horror novels, games, or movies prepared him for how terrified he was of how badly he wanted whatever was happening to keep happening. These Moments between them never went on this long, never got this far, he had always stopped them before they could.

From the her eyes were flicking from meeting his, to his mouth, he could tell she didn’t want this to stop.

She stood on her toes at the same time he began to lean down to meet her lips with his own.

His only kissing experience was a two-week high school fling, and these two moments weren’t remotely comparable. There he was indifferent, just doing what everyone else was doing until he got sick of it.

This – _she._ Malia – had actually made it feel like something that should be special to him, an electric pulse run up and down his spine, this synapse-frying contact that was somehow soft and subdued and didn’t need to be anything more than what they wanted. They seemed to be magnetic, tugging at each other despite it not being physically possible for them to be any more connected than they were, and all Sebastian could was hold her and keep her lips from leaving his for as long as possible, to keep being surrounded by _her_ , the scent of her hair and the feel of her skin and the breathless sound of her voice when she pulled away at last.

Her eyes seemed dazed, as though she didn’t want to move forward in time, wanting to hold on to the feeling of the moment as long as possible – at least he hoped that’s what it was, because that was absolutely what it was for him.

“…wow,” she said, her voice almost completely carried away by the breeze.

“Yeah,” was all he could say, “…wow.”

Her arms were around his neck again, and he could feel her warm breath in the crook of his neck, and he couldn’t help but reciprocate and bury his face in her hair.

Before the quiet faded back into street noise (which contained at least one unwelcomed wolf whistle from a stranger), there was a one second pause where something forced him to acknowledge it, the full gravity of the boundary they’d crossed.

_Everything is different now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't keep bait-and-switching you guys much longer. But this...is but the beginning.
> 
> song to imagine: Say You Won't Let Go - James Arthurt


	7. Parameters for Budding Romantics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kisses can turn frogs into princes, awake someone from a cursed sleep, and bring people back to life. They fix every problem.
> 
> But...only in fairy tales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD.
> 
> I feel like I owe you all an explanation. 
> 
> I'm an MFA candidate in grad school, and I'm taking a novel workshop to get me off my ass and pay attention to my original work. It is fucking intense and so Seb and Mal fell to the wayside a bit. I'm getting more of a handle on it so I'm managing to make time.
> 
> Also, I had a completely different plan for both this chapter and the entire rest of the fic, that involved drawing out the entire thing with unnecessary bullshit and halfway through I decided "I hate this" and struggled to come up with a new idea that wasn't me forcing myself to write something that wasn't fun for me. So I switched gears and that took a bit of my time as well.
> 
> I'm also...kinda known for abandoning stories, but I really don't want this to be one of them because I love it and I love all your comments. Not updating gave me serious anxiety bc I thought, even though I was writing and thinking and planning, I was going back to my old ways.
> 
> But I'm here! Just with a little less free time, and that's also been driving me to make the chapters longer.

_You kissed her. You really did that. Just planted one on her._

Sebastian wished that his brain would give him some peace occasionally. He wondered what it would be like to just _stop_ thinking. Was it peaceful?

_She kissed you back._

…Well, maybe thinking wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

The ride home was awkward purely because he and Malia had elected to make it so. They needed to talk, and it definitely wasn’t going to happen in Sam’s car, when he could see his friend was very pleased with the results of his own date and probably wanted to think about that, instead of worrying over the fact that the “chill buffer friend” he’d brought along was silently imploding.

He didn’t want to stare into space, but when he looked at Malia, it started again.

_She kissed you back she kissed you back she kissed you back she kissed you—_

He needed a distraction from thinking. He noticed the warmth of his hand and saw that Malia had laid her own hand surreptitiously on top of his.

He pulled his hand away, only to place it on top of hers.

She twitched, trying to resist. But his competitive nature fired up her own more times than they could count.

She swiped her hand out from under his, and it was on top again.

This continued, and Sebastian wanted to pat them both on the back for keeping their new game so quiet.

Then she used her right hand to cover his, sandwiching him in.

“Foul. Major foul,” he whispered. “Against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The ones…that exist.”

“All rules for new stupid games have to be run by the committee.”

“Consisting of?”

“Me and Banshee.”

“Hey Malia,” Sam interjected, sounding like he was holding a laugh and _damn him_ , “this is your stop.”

They hadn’t notice the switch from pavement to dirt during their competition, and were also unaware of when the car had stopped.

Sebastian was imploding again, and he was sure Malia could see it in his eyes.

_Get out with her._

_Isn’t that weird, for a friend to do that?_

_You_ kissed _her._

_But—that doesn’t mean we’re…shit shit shit—_

What the hell _did_ that mean? What had he _done_ here? What had he started? Ended? Started—he wanted to go with started.

Did he, though?

This was—screw it.

“I’ll just…” he didn’t even bother with a half-baked excuse, he just got out of the car at the same time Malia did. Sam tapped his arm outside the driver’s side window, silently asking him if he should wait.

“I’ll walk,” he muttered. Sam shrugged, pulling away when Sebastian met Malia on her porch, at first distracting himself with the moths flinging themselves at the porchlight before looking down at her.

_The girl you kissed_

_Knock it off!_

“So…” He began. For once, Malia’s motormouth engine seemed to be stalling, because he was sure she had around a thousand things to say to him – _why’d you kiss me, loser?_ or _we should never talk about this_ or just maybe _I like you too –_ but it seemed like her mouth just wasn’t letting any words out. He knew the feeling.

“So…” her bottom lip pursed as she bit it, and he could see that that wasn’t what she wanted to say.

“I…kissed you.” He lamely reminded her. Her face screwed up in avoidance of a laugh.

“You…you sure did. You rapscallion.”

“Do you even know what that means? Because I…do not,” he told her, then, daringly, he added, “but it must mean something good to you seeing as you didn’t seem to be…opposed.”

In the warm light, he could see her face go red, and it was bizarrely satisfying.

“I…was in no way opposed to it. The action. Of you kissing me.”

And then it was an idea fully realized, an event out in the open in Stardew Valley instead of something that only lingered behind them in the lights of the city. His heart was beating faster, he’d just kissed this girl, on a whim, and had no idea what to do next or what it would lead to, and everything around them was suddenly terrifying.

“Did you mean to?” She asked him. He found it an odd question, but could feel her reading him even though he’d taken a new interest in staring at his shoes.

“I just…I felt like…” he couldn’t think straight anymore. What the hell happened?

“Do you need a little?” she asked, her voice small and nervous now and Yoba, why did she get to be nervous too? “Like…processing time?”

Yes. _Yoba_ , yes, he needed that. But he didn’t want it—he was already thinking too much, one half of a couple— _Yoba were they a couple or not???_ —needing time to fully process why he’d kissed one of his best friends didn’t seem very romantic at all. Was that fair to her? He’d started it. What fucking right did he have to be confused?

“It’s late,” she finally said, and he looked up and he could see _something_ —it looked like hurt but it couldn’t be, he didn’t _want_ that, he couldn’t just leave her like that but—this was—he couldn’t—

“Do you want me to go?” He asked.

“Don’t you want to?”

Yes…no? No. Definitely no. But—also y—

“I’m gonna,” she lazily gestured to her own front door, “you know…go inside. Please call me? Or come by? Tomorrow?”

“First thing,” he said quickly, “first thing tomorrow, I’ll be…you know, wherever you need me to be.”

She nodded, then, after a moment of thought, wrapped her arms around him tightly. He tensed and then relaxed, returning the gesture, his face resting in her hair, and at the feeling of her warm breath on his chest, or the area just below his neck that he had yet to find a hoodie to conceal. He held on as long as she did, hoping she could feel the silent apologies he was sending her. _I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m so sorry._

*

“Why are you _like_ this?”

The thing Malia hated most about taking off and putting on even small amounts of makeup was the amount of time it required her stare at herself in the mirror. The wet wipe she was using to attack her mascara was pulling double-duty as a result, switching between her face and imaginary smudges on the bathroom mirror.

It was the perfect night, her brain decided, for her to bully herself.

“If you hadn’t fucking pushed him, he probably wouldn’t have…” she grumbled, “and now he feels _bad_. Because he thinks he messed with you but it was _you_ it’s always _you_.”

She pulled back, if she scrubbed the mirror or her eyes with any more pressure she’d break something. She needed to relax. Giving herself one more once-over, she laughed derisively as what she’d done, smudging everything so badly she looked like the same racoon-eyed sourpuss she had been through middle and high school. It reminded her of her mother. Too much.

_It always has to be your way, doesn’t it Malia?_

There she was, there she _always_ was when she messed up her own life somehow. The only difference now was she could have lost her best friend because she couldn’t just keep her feelings to herself. _Dance with me_ , she had said, like it was just a cute game. It felt like one then but now that she was home, that she could really think about it—

_You can’t manipulate me like you can your father, Malia. Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Be a big girl, for_ once.

She had forgotten where that had even come from, what that argument had been about. Something stupid, something childish. She was a woman now, and she was going to deal with what had happened like a grown woman, she was going to deal with and _accept_ that the guy she liked—

That he—

He might not—

He _doesn’t_ —

“Fuck,” she left everything as it exited the bathroom. “Just…fuck it.”

She wasn’t the type to scream into her pillows to let out aggression. So when she landed on her bed, she simply let out a loud groan of frustration, and not even Banshee’s purrs could make her relax.

*

She wasn’t answering.

Sebastian was always thankful when an important call he needed to make wasn’t picked up, since leaving a voicemail was so much simpler, but he couldn’t let this go. He hadn’t called anyone this many times this early in the morning.

Okay, it was 10 AM, but it was still the morning.

She was probably working. She was a farmer. Farmers worked. _He_ should be working. His client was waiting for that half-finished progress report sitting in his hard drive, untouched since Thursday. But this time…Sebastian kind of felt like his own life might be more important.

It already wasn’t fair that he had to spend the whole rest of his life with himself, he didn’t need to make it any worse by ruining something with someone who made him happy.

But he couldn’t abate his own self-destruction if she wouldn’t pick up her damn phone.

This whole thing was screwing him up, especially, as it turned out, his intricate timing – because when he finally went upstairs for food, Demetrius was still in the house. And saw him. And looked on the verge of interacting, even.

_NOPE._

“You got home late,” the man said, his tone essentially harmless. Sebastian didn’t look up from the sandwich he was making.

“You know those crazy young adults, coming and going like they don’t have a curfew. _Oh wait_ ,” Sebastian hissed, “last time I checked, I didn’t.”

He was aware that he should keep his responses in check, as he tended to do, but for some reason letting out some misplaced aggression felt _incredibly_ cathartic.

“Still should’ve called someone,” Demetrius said, “we were worried.”

“You’re so full of it,” Sebastian let out a humorless chuckle at the very thought of his step-father giving him more than a passing thought.

“What did you just say to me?”

“Basically, I said you’re full of shit,” Sebastian stepped away from the counter, sandwich made and escape planned, “don’t pretend you give a _shit_ about what I do, or that you even have a _say_ in it. So you weren’t worried. Maru wasn’t worried. Mom does this stupid thing called _trusting me_ and if she was worried she would’ve called. So if you want to make some fucking conversation with me for once, I’d suggest you don’t kick off with berating me for being twenty-three and going out with friends, okay?”

“I don’t care _how_ old you are, you live under _my_ roof—”

“Oh fuck off, I live under _mom’s_ roof. Did you build this place? No. She did. So that’s not gonna work either.” Sebastian spat, hunger being slowly forgotten, “so try something else. Really. I’m interested.”

All of this frustration with himself, with Malia, with the situation he’d created – it was finding its outlet, and honestly? It felt like a worthy one.

“What the hell is going on in here?” His mother’s voice startled him, because it was in the borderline-angry tone of a woman who knew _exactly_ what was going on.

“Your husband is talking to me, and I’d rather he not do that,” Sebastian told her, taking an aggressive bite of his lunch.

“He’s out until after midnight doing Yoba knows what—”

“Dear, he was out with friends,” Robin told Demetrius sternly.

“He was out with a girl, in ZuZu City—excuse me if I don’t want any trouble, if he were to get into drugs or get her pregnant, there’s no room for—”

“Oh, shut the _fuck_ up, old man,” Sebastian’s anger had officially reached its peak once the topic drifted to his friends and, even more so, a particularly sore spot, “you expect me to give a shit about how my life affects _yours_? You’re a fucking _botanist_. What life, really?”

“Sebastian!” Robin scolded in surprise, and he realized he’d never spoken to Demetrius quite this way before.

“No, no, you’re right, my bad. So, you’re gonna—what, ground me? Was all I had to do to get you to act like a damn parent in the last twenty years was catch you at the right time of day?”

“Sebastian, I swear—” Demetrius raised a finger, and Sebastian rolled his eyes and quickly turned around.

“Swear all the _fuck_ you want, I’m out. I’m done.”

“Sebastian!”

“Call me when you’re done playing bad cop, ya plant fucker.”

He walked out the door, just barely catching what sounded like Maru laughing despite trying not to, his exiting line catching her by surprise.

He was two steps away from his front door when he realized he had no idea what the fuck to do next. He looked at his phone.

**Missed Call**

_Moldlia Thayer (1)_

Well, _there_ was something to do.

For some reason, calling her five times didn’t abate his nervousness as his thumb hovered over her name. It didn’t help that, after he dialed, she picked up after the first ring.

“ _Hey—_ ”

“Sorry I missed your call I just called my stepfather a plant fucker.”

It was perhaps best, he thought seconds later, not to ramble.

“ _Sounds like…an exciting day so far,”_ was all she said after a quiet bark of a laugh, “ _listen, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up. I just…I think I’m thinking too much. Can you come over?_ ”

He did not consider his start to the day to be as exciting as she had assumed, but somehow _can you come over_ made his stomach flip in a way that wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

“Yeah. Just a sec.” And he made his way over to the farm as quickly as he could manage, half out of anticipation and half out of the thought that his mother was going to kill him for what he just did.

*

“So.”

“…so,” Sebastian said, internally grimacing at how they’d managed to already be right back where they started.

He’d taken in Malia’s appearance as soon as she had opened the door. She looked tired, her hair tied up but messy, like she just couldn’t be bothered with it. Her eyes brightened when she saw him, then dimmed for just a second – just one, painful second – before she recovered. She hadn’t said anything until he sat down on her couch, and her uncharacteristic silence was bothering him. He loved silence, but he _hated_ this.

“Did I make you?” She asked him finally, her form curled up on the other end of the couch.

“What?”

“Did I, like…push you,” she clarified, “like, if I hadn’t made you dance with me or go into town, would you have—”

“I agreed to all of that,” he told her.

“I _know_ , I just…” she groaned, trying to find words, “sometimes I…I feel like I’m…I don’t know, manipulative. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Sebastian had a pretty good idea by now of who may have told her that.

“And that,” she continued after a pause, “when I want something really bad I…I push people.”

Sebastian could only stare, and she seemed to take this as a confirmation of every negative thought she’d been having. Her gently curled body tightened into what looked like a crumpled heap of a person – it was awful, but he didn’t know how to properly express himself.

“You, uh…” he began, “you really…wanted me?”

She seemed to realize what she had said then, and her face flushed. She nodded.

“I just mean, would you have kissed me if I hadn’t—”

“Yes.”

He surprised _himself_ with how quickly he’d responded, how naturally the word came to him. Her eyes went wide and her face red, and he couldn’t resist the temptation to backtrack at least a little bit.

“I mean…maybe not that night. Right then. But I…I mean, by then I had—I’d been thinking about it a lot. And thought at some point I’d get the balls to just…I don’t know.”

“Well,” she said, a smile curling onto her face, “you did.”

“I did.”

The silence that fell between them then was more comfortable, less reminiscent of a ruined friendship and instead filled with the possibility of something else, something much better.

But it was still silence.

“We’re really bad at this, aren’t we?” She asked finally.

“You could not have picked a more awkward person to like,” he told her, “similar to your music and film preference, your taste in men is kind of weak.” That got him a kick in his side and a pout. “But seriously,” he said, rubbing the point of impact, “how do you…want to do this? Proceed, I mean. I’ve never really…”

“Slow,” she said quietly, “I know you…get nervous and when you don’t feel good I don’t feel good and then I get weird and I don’t want to be weird. The bad weird. I want us to be the good weird.”

He snorted, “I am a fan of the good weird.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I do, and…slow sounds good,” ‘good’ was an understatement. As much he knew he’d enjoy a full-blown relationship, it seemed like the weight of expectation was too heavy, and ‘slow’ would chip away at it until it was bearable. “And um…shit, this is gonna sound so dickish—”

“Go for it.”

“Maybe…people don’t need to know we’re—” Yoba, how could he get her to not be offended, “I just—you know there’s stuff I can’t handle and gossip is one of them. I don’t like the idea of people, I guess, talking about us when we’re not there. Like once someone like Abby’s mom or Sam’s mom knows then the whole town does.”

“Hm…secret rendevouz…” she tapped her chin in thought, “I—honestly I don’t like feeling like people are like…watching me so. That’s…I like it. For now.”

“For now,” he agreed.

“So, slow and secret for Seb and…Malia,” she said, “mmf. Doesn’t flow, I need an S name. My middle name is Susannah, does that work for you?”

“Nope. Deal breaker. Can’t date Susannahs.” Sebastian noticed they both seemed mildly surprised at his use of the word date, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

Their interactions from then on felt totally new and exciting, despite being as mundane as watching TV with her—where she leaned against him and he tucked his arm around her without having to worry about not being on the same page, which felt _so_ good.

He noticed her looking up at him, and the back at the TV when he caught her, several times before he said something.

“You okay?”

“…I wanna kiss you again.”

And then it seemed that the simple, comfortable contact had just been a warm up, and here was the test. They weren’t in a beautifully lit city street, with live music and ambience surrounding them – they were in her house, as they often were. Would this be different? Was this the test that would tell them if they _worked_ or not? It seemed like that kind of test. _Disturbingly_ like the kind of test.

It was slightly more difficult to face each other from their current position, and adjusting each other gave him time to think, traitorously, maybe there was a part of his mind that _didn’t_ want to kiss her. Maybe last night was a fluke, the result in a sudden change of scenery.

Then he looked down at her, illuminated in a soft blue light that had coated the room since night had fallen, her eyes alight as always, a strand of hair falling in her face as she bit her lip while staring his and he realized _nope,_ he was totally down for some action.

Like right now. He last thought, _just do it, quit waiting, come on_ occurred to him just before she wrapped her arms around his neck and made the first move.

As they graduate from their ten-second kiss in the city to almost ten full minutes of knowing only each other, rest of the world be damned, Sebastian decided that even he – introverted basement-dweller extraordinaire – could definitely get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would've felt wrong for these two people, with definite issues, to jump into anything huge right away. Finding someone doesn't make your baggage go away. But you can help each other.
> 
> Also maybe I should stop picking on Demetrius. I'll give that some thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Deleted ending: Sebastian googling how to talk to women
> 
> Malia actually does know the meaning of TMI, it's just not a part of her personal vocabulary.
> 
> Also I refuse to use natural hair colors in any series that allows me to do otherwise, so guess what? Malia looks like a damn hipster, that's what


End file.
